I can't believe we're about a week away from the premiere and there's no thread yet. F. Murray Abraham joined the cast as what I can only imagine is a high level CIA/government position (and who's probably a sonofabitch), we time jump ahead of last season's finale (for better or worse, though hopefully for better) and fuck, best show of last year is coming back! Next Sunday!

And I love this trailer. While other shows go loud and plot heavy, this is just our characters looking, watching, being, all set to the lovely cover version of 'I'll Be Watching You' by Scala & Kolacny Brothers. Finally. Someone gets the meaning of that song right and puts it to proper use.

The finale was a letdown for an otherwise great season of television. Do love that season 2 promo though. Will be watching. Sorta feel it would be best to end it with this season. Hard to imagine keeping this going for multiple years without going stale.

After the supreb heights of The Weekend (seriously one of the best episodes of TV in recent memory) the finale felt a bit 'been there done that' but I'm not writing this off. Danes and Lewis are so great I'd gladly watch a much worse show for them alone.

I'll be watching this for Danes, Lewis and Patinkin, but I found the first season to be about as well-written and contrived as a season of 24 - not that surprising since it's created by the same guys. Hopefully they step up their game this season.

Seriously? I thought this was better written than even the best seasons of 24, as much as I loved that show. More nuanced, more interesting characters. Some aspects were familiar but that's to be expected as they're both terrorism shows.

Yes, absolutely. I found it to have the same convenient plotting, muddled motivations and pervasive sense of paranoia. Don't forget that there was a moment when people thought 24 was well-written too. It's only once they stretched the concept to breaking point (including, oddly enough, a bout of amnesia) that people realized how silly it was.

Four Lions is a nuanced take on the subject. Paradise Now is a nuanced take on the subject. Homeland is not.

The ending was a reset button,but it doesn't wipe out an excellent season of television. I don't agree that it's Breaking Bad quality, but I think it's fair to call it the best season of TV Showtime's ever produced, although maybe it just seems Peabody-worthy because I watched it after Dexter.

It's a testament to how well done and well acted the rest of the show is that we're not all howling bloody fucking murder over the season one finale, but rather being just kind of "eeeeh, we'll see where they go with it." Any lesser shows pulls a reset button out like that, I'd have dismissed it immediately.

Lewis is trying to infiltrate the highest tiers of government and Danes is fired. I fail to see how that's a "reset". The shock treatment was a cliffhanger, making its impact impossible to evaluate. With a season that well-handled, I see no reason to assume the worst.

These characters moved more in the first season than I recall any recent show even attempting.

Lewis is trying to infiltrate the highest tiers of government and Danes is fired. I fail to see how that's a "reset". The shock treatment was a cliffhanger, making its impact impossible to evaluate. With a season that well-handled, I see no reason to assume the worst.

These characters moved more in the first season than I recall any recent show even attempting.

Because it was a reset when it came to what I liked most. The dynamic between Danes and Lewis. As the season progressed it became more muddied, more complex until the obligatory twist and shocking amnesia disentangled eveyrthing again. That was the main reason I was wathcing this. Because otherwise it is nothing exceptional.

It felt like taking the easy way out. Like they had written theselves into a corner and decided to blow their way out of it instead of owning it and going with it. Kind of what Sons Of Anarchy did.

Ya know when a series comes to the end of it's season and they don't know if they're gonna get picked up by the network for the next , and they start throwing a lot of stuff into the mix, just in case and to cover their ass?

Because it was a reset when it came to what I liked most. The dynamic between Danes and Lewis. As the season progressed it became more muddied, more complex until the obligatory twist and shocking amnesia disentangled eveyrthing again. That was the main reason I was wathcing this. Because otherwise it is nothing exceptional.

I may have to pop in the season 1 DVD and re-watch Brody's video to remind myself just how damning it was. Obviously, it'll be enough to convince Saul, but my assumption is that it'll be too circumstantial to be actionable on its own.

I think Danes has -already- locked up next year's Emmy, and everyone else is off to a great start as well. Carrie's little tics when they're not even the focus of the scene make it very easy to forget I'm watching an actress play a role. And Patinkin is just killing it... flat-out murdering it and burying it in the yard. He makes me wistful for the salt-and-pepper bearded sage mentor I never had!

I found the episode to be very good, although the handy coincidences needed for Saul to find the video were a bit much. However, I have to give the cast credit. Patinkin, Danes and Lewis are remarkable, elevating this to a very, very, very good version of 24.

I finally got around to finishing up Season 1 when I heard the positive talk about the new stuff. I left off after episode 7, happy that something interesting had finally happened (Carrie's fling with Brody), but unsure of how well they could keep it going.

When I resumed with episode 8, things took off like a rocket. The bullshit subplots and detours fell by the wayside. When I let out a deep breath after that incredibly intense finale (yeah, I'm with the rest of you that were blubbering like a baby during the daughter's phone call), I decided this was probably my new favorite drama on TV.

I was overjoyed that it had finally grown into something worthy of the talents of Lewis, Danes, and Patinkin. When it started out, it was a different story. There was a lot of sensational sizzle, but only the promise of possible steak to come. The bullshit blonde escort plot was like something out of a CBS show. The entire suburban house plotline ended up being horseshit. Mandy Patinkin seemed like he thought he was still on a CBS show, too. Most of all, the "Is he or isn't he?" with Brody was infuriating. Until the audience knew what his deal was, it was like the premise of the show was partially incomplete.

It was a big relief when they finally let us know Brody was really planning something, after half a season of deer killing and friend punching and weird sex and ominous staring at landmarks. Now, the actor has something definitive he can play off of, and the audience can fully invest themselves in the tension.

Season 2 has kept up the quality at the same level. Brody sending the text gives us no doubt he still supports the cause, when he could have just let the guy get taken out. Saul got to have his Hank-on-the-toilet moment nice and early, so that will keep things moving nicely. The only question is, how the hell are they going to do a season 3 after all this? Only one side is going to get through this thing...

Kinda funny, but I hadn't seen any season 2 promos, so when I was watching the finale I let myself believe it was possible that Brody would actually die and it would be just Carrie the next year.

The only question is, how the hell are they going to do a season 3 after all this? Only one side is going to get through this thing...

The creators have said that Carrie is the lead, long term. So eventually, Damian Lewis is going to go, and they'll have a helluva challenge filling that hole.

But that's likely a season 3 problem. Although the way they've been accelerating their storyline, it wouldn't totally surprise me if Brody got taken out by midseason. Him being turned triple-agent and being run as an asset by Carrie is certainly an open possibility as well.

Any way they go, they've got my confidence that it'll be handled well.

I hope actresses not named Claire Danes didn't have their hearts set on winning an Emmy next year.

Yeah, they should add a category for, "Best Faux Surprise When Beaten by Danes for Best Actress". My money's on Moss.

It's amazing how tense Carrie's scenes were through the entire episode. Brodie's got the more "thriller" storyline, but that sequence with Carrier getting tarted-up (nice detail with the wedding ring) and then attempting suicide was grueling even before she went for the pills.

Danes is getting some excellent help from the writers and directors, too. Doing the entire suicide sequence in silence except for Carrie's own sounds made it perfectly uncomfortable. At the beginning when I heard the jazz music in her earphones, I already knew she was in trouble because of how they've linked it to her manic/obsessive behavior. And it's got to take a lot of trust to let your actress' face deliver about 1000 lines worth of dialogue every episode.

Oh, and kudos to them for the early episode reset-button fake-out with Saul losing the card, AND for smashing the reset button into a 1000 pieces by episode's end. Well done.

The episode was directed by Lodge Kerrigan. If you've seen "Clean, Shaven" and "Keane", you know the guy has a way of getting you inside a character's head. That attempted suicide sequence was riveting. In fact, I found the Carrie stuff WAY more interesting than Brody's woodland caper, which I found a bit too ludicrous to be suspenseful. It felt a bit more broad than Carrie's storyline, and the tones clashed a bit.

Bit of a timewaster ep this week. Brody's mission of the week could have been anything, they just needed to fill some space for an excuse to get back to the marriage troubles.

Carrie's story was well acted as usual. My favorite moment was when she couldn't sit still in the CIA office for a minute without bugging out. The suicide, they played it as well as they could but it was completely obvious those pills were going to get puked.

Interesting that they got that director in there. Clean,Shaven was pretty fucking disturbing. Keane, I need to finish watching that one. Got halfway through, had to leave the house, never got back to it. It's cool that Damien remembers his indie director bros, though. No love for Lawrence Kasdan, director of Dreamcatcher?

I'd feel like an asshole whinning about a show with her being so great in it.

A single great performance/character doesn't absolve the show from criticism. There are plenty of actresses and actors who are uniformly terrific, and elevate the work they're in as a whole every time, but that doesn't make the work untouchable.

The mission they sent Brody on seemed completely ridiculous. Why waste their highest placed asset on such a dangerous task (if, in fact, what the reporter said was even true and the CIA really was onto the tailor). The only thing I can think is that maybe they want to get rid of Brody? Otherwise, it seemed like the writers were reaching. Carrie's storyline in this episode was flawless and flawlessly acted.

The mission they sent Brody on seemed completely ridiculous. Why waste their highest placed asset on such a dangerous task (if, in fact, what the reporter said was even true and the CIA really was onto the tailor). The only thing I can think is that maybe they want to get rid of Brody? Otherwise, it seemed like the writers were reaching. Carrie's storyline in this episode was flawless and flawlessly acted.

I said it before. Abu Nazir is mishandling the greatest double agent in mankind's history in such a way I have trouble seeing him as some master terrorist.